Dog with name tag 'works' drive-through window

CLEARWATER, Fla. – Customers at one Gulf coast gas station might be surprised at who responds to the counter when they pull up to the drive-through window: The store owner's dog. Dozens of times each day, Cody the chocolate Labradaor retriever will pop up on two paws behind the counter at a BP gas station and convenience store in Clearwater. He even has a BP logo shirt
and a name tag. Customers grin and kids squeal with joy in response.
Store owner Karim Mansour said he started bringing Cody to work five months ago for company on the early morning shift. The dog quickly became a celebrity among store regulars.
Mansour said Cody helps customers by calming those who come in sad or angry.

Pa. suspect's sweet tooth results in felony charge

TYRONE, Pa. – Police said a serial shoplifter from central Pennsylvania has taken three sweet steps over the line and now faces a felony charge. Sonya Mosey, 33, was jailed on a felony retail theft charge for allegedly stealing three snack cakes worth $4.27 from a convenience store on Oct. 27. Police said she took a Hostess doughnut and two Tastykake items from the store, though she did pay for a soda pop.
Mosey has been charged with a felony because she has four prior retail theft convictions. She's also awaiting trials on a separate felony retail theft case, a drug charge, and public drunkenness.
Mosey was jailed on the newest charge Monday and faces a preliminary hearing next Tuesday. Online court records don't list an attorney for her.

Robber behind "perfect crime" surrenders

PARIS – The driver of a security van who vanished earlier this month with more than 11 million euros ($16.5 million) in cash has surrendered to police in Monaco, French authorities said on Monday.
Toni Musulin disappeared with his vehicle while on a delivery round in the eastern French city of Lyon on November 5, shortly after taking charge of sacks of cash from a local branch of the Bank of France.
The heist, which admirers said appeared to be the perfect crime, turned Musulin into a folk hero with Facebook groups, a flood of Twitter entries and at least one website presenting him as a plucky underdog turned criminal mastermind.
One firm even started selling t-shirts emblazoned with Musulin's face.
But on November 9, Musulin's plans started to go awry as police found most of his booty, more than 9 million euros, in a garage in Lyon that he had rented out under an assumed name.
Then, after two weeks on the run, Musulin turned himself in on Monday, a French police spokesman said, declining to say why.
Just after the disappearance, police had found Musulin's flat had been cleared out and his bank accounts emptied, suggesting that he had been preparing his coup for some time. The security van was found abandoned shortly afterwards.

Woman leaves $40,000 at Md. shrine for safekeeping

HAGERSTOWN, Md. – A woman quietly left $40,000 worth of rare U.S. coins near a Catholic shrine for safekeeping so the Virgin Mary could watch over her life savings while she was out of town, and apparently it worked: The money was returned to her when she got back a week later.
Operators of the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes near Emmitsburg thought they had been blessed with a big donation when a groundskeeper found the two plastic freezer bags filled with gold and silver while raking leaves.
But Shrine Director William Tronolone said the woman approached him after a noon Mass Sunday, six days after the discovery, to ask whether anyone had found some coins she had hidden beneath fallen leaves at the site on the campus of Mount St. Mary's University.
"I said, 'Why did you leave it there?' And she said, 'Well, I had to go away and I was afraid to leave it and I wanted the Blessed Mother to watch over it for me — and evidently she did because you found it,'" Tronolone said.
By then, university officials had had the coins appraised, notified police and placed the money in a safe while awaiting word from investigators.
Tronolone refused to identify the woman. He said she had been out of town about a week.
After the school's security director returned the coins Monday, he accompanied the woman to her bank and persuaded her to put them in her safe deposit box, Tronolone said.
The shrine, about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore, features a replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France, where Catholics believe Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a French schoolgirl named Bernadette several times, beginning in 1858. The Emmitsburg replica draws more than 200,000 visitors annually, Tronolone said.
Grotto visitors often leave anonymous donations, including a $3,000 cash gift two weeks ago.
"Up here at the grotto, you get a lot of people that are very, very faithful," Tronolone said, "and they do things you and I would never even attempt to do."